Loralai district: almond orchards of Bori valley and seat of a division

Introduction and location

Loralai is a hilly district in north-eastern Balochistan. Its headquarters is Loralai city. According to the district administration of the Government of Balochistan, the district consists of one sub-division, Bori, which has two tehsils, Bori and Mekhtar.

According to the 2023 census, the population of Loralai district is 272,432. Of these, about 59,601 people live in urban areas and 212,831 in rural areas. That means four out of every five residents live in villages. The district covers an area of 3,785 square kilometres. According to the district administration’s page, the 2017 census put the population at 244,400, of which Bori tehsil accounted for 203,562 and Mekhtar tehsil for 40,838.

The administrative status of Loralai has changed over time. According to the district administration, Musakhel and Barkhan were given the status of separate districts in 1992 and Duki in 2017. This left the present district confined to the Bori valley and the Mekhtar area. In 2021, the provincial government made Loralai the headquarters of a new division, which included the districts of Loralai, Musakhel, Barkhan and Duki.

Then, on 8 July 2026, the province was reorganised into 11 divisions and 41 districts under a notification of the Revenue Department of the Government of Balochistan. According to a Dawn report, the notification removed the districts of Ziarat and Harnai from Sibi (formerly Sibi) division and added them to Loralai division. The text of the official notification must be consulted for the full new composition of the division. It was not available at the time this article was prepared.

History

The old name of Loralai is linked to the Bori valley. According to the Loralai volume of the Balochistan District Gazetteer, published in 1907, Loralai district was established in 1903. It was formed by taking the tehsils of Musakhel and Bori from Zhob district, and the tehsils of Barkhan, Duki and Sanjawi from the old Thal Chotiali (later Sibi) district. According to the Gazetteer, the district then covered 7,999 square miles, many times the size of the present district.

During the British period, the valley had military and administrative importance. According to a historical sketch by the district judiciary on the Balochistan High Court website, in October 1884 an army of about 4,800 soldiers entered the Bori valley, and the Loralai cantonment was founded at around the same time. According to the same sketch, Sir Robert Sandeman held a durbar at Bori that was attended by the chiefs of the valley. On 22 November 1894, the chiefs of Bori and Zhob signed an agreement accepting British supremacy. Loralai city and cantonment remained part of Thal Chotiali district until 1894 and were then included in the Zhob Agency, until a separate district came into being in 1903.

After the creation of Pakistan, the district remained for a long time spread over the areas of the present Musakhel, Barkhan and Duki, which later became separate districts. Over the course of a century, Loralai has thus been first a vast district, then a small district, and is now the headquarters of a division.

People and languages

According to the mother tongue table (Table 11) of the 2023 census, the great majority of the population of Loralai district, about 95 per cent, speaks Pashto, while Balochi speakers make up around one per cent. The rest of the population includes speakers of Saraiki, Punjabi and Urdu.

The population of the district is largely rural and depends on agriculture and livestock. Loralai city is the only major urban centre in the district. It has the divisional and district offices, the cantonment, the university and the bazaars. According to the records of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the University of Loralai was established on 27 September 2012.

Economy

Horticulture is the backbone of the Loralai economy. According to the district profile of the Rural Support Programmes Network, the main fruits grown here are almond, apricot, apple and pomegranate. The SMEDA district profile, based on figures from the Director General Agriculture, Quetta, records the almond area in the district in 2019-20 as 5,730 hectares and production as 19,280 tonnes. A policy paper prepared for the Balochistan agriculture policy proposes declaring Loralai, Zhob and Qila Saifullah the country’s almond cluster, with Loralai as its centre. The Balochistan Agriculture Department’s Land Utilization Statistics 2021-22 has a separate table of fruit area and production for Loralai district, from which more recent figures can be taken.

The same policy paper lists almond, apricot, grape, apple, peach, cherry, pomegranate and pistachio as potential fruits for Loralai. This means the district’s agricultural identity rests on dry fruit and stone fruit.

Places of interest

The Loralai valley is also important for its archaeology. The district has the ancient mounds of Rana Ghundai, Dabar Kot and Sur Jangal. They are counted among the prehistoric sites of Balochistan where painted pottery and traces of settlements have been found. The Archaeology Department has no formal tourist facilities at these sites, and reaching them is difficult without local guidance.

The British-era cantonment is a hallmark of Loralai city, and the almond and apple orchards around the city are the district’s other distinguishing feature. The Culture and Tourism Department has not yet issued formal tourist information for the district, so only those places that appear in cultural heritage lists have been mentioned here.